Julian Wright and some Rankings

The recent word is that Byron Scott has removed Julian Wright from his rotation due to the 2nd year forward’s erratic play. I’m not shocked by this – Julian has been up and down, sometimes out of control, sometimes aggressive, and sometimes indecisive. Byron also has the luxury of several swingmen, Peja, Posey, Peterson, and Butler, all of whom are known quantities. All coaches, and Byron in particular, like known quantities, and Julian Wright is chaos.

I should preface this by saying I like Byron Scott. This team is definitely his team. He’s forced his stamp on the team by showing no tolerance for knuckleheads, and Jeff Bower has accomodated him by bringing in guys that meet Scott’s mold. This team is a winning team, and much of that is due to the culture of the team – a culture created by Scott.

However, Scott’s problem as a coach so far has been his unwillingness to develop a player when he has other “known quantities” available. Brandon Bass got no time in Oklahoma because Scott could play David West, Jackson Vroman, and Marc Jackson. Two of those three guys weren’t better than Bass, but Scott knew they would go out there, do what he told them, and he knew exactly what he would get from them. Kirk Snyder and JR Smith(to an extreme) were in similar situations with Brandon Bass.

In some cases, I’m fine with Scott’s choice to bench players. JR deserved it. Bass’s rookie year, he needed to sit. Julian, however, has shown some amazing flashes, and I feel he deserves to see if he can turn his brand of chaos and unpreditability into a dangerous scalpel. I don’t see that happening unless we move not one swingmen, but two, since we’ll probably target a point guard, which means Devin Brown would join the ranks of swingmen ahead of Julian on the depth chart. I’m not sure we’ll see two swingmen get moved, which worries me. It may just be Julian who is dangled as the bait for that veteran point or big man.

That would be a mistake.

On to other things:

I’ve been a bit amiss in posting two sets of rankings we here at Hornets247 support: The Bloggers Power Rankings and the Bloggers MVP and Rookie of the Year rankings.

The latest version of the Blogger’s Power Ranking can be found over at the always good 3 Shades of Blue, where the Hornets can be found climbing back up the rankings, reaching 7th this time around. People are still clearly not sold on them.

The latest version of the MVP/ROY Rankings can be found over at Upside and Motor. Paul is clearly suffering from the Hornets not living up to their expectations, and is sitting at 4th on the list. Last year, he won the thing.